In the age of social media dominance, it’s easy to forget that once upon a time, you couldn’t catch up with your friends with a simple scroll through your Facebook FB or Twitter TWTR feed. In 1997, Verizon-owned VZ AOL forever changed how we communicate when it brought instant messaging to a mass audience with the release of AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, for short.
In a move that has us nostalgically trying to remember our screen-names, AOL just announced that it will be discontinuing its AIM service as of December 15, 2017. When it first debuted, AIM was seen as utterly revolutionary, and it was. Within a few years, the chat service had millions of teenagers carefully curating “buddy” lists and spilling their drama via angsty away messages.
But like all good things, AIM, too, must come to an end. May that yellow running man finally reach his destination. Rest in peace, AIM.
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